Homage to Contemporary Bullshido

Month: July 2016

Normally I wouldn’t recommend anybody peruse the pages of the Rupertarian – because it simply isn’t good for you. The below isn’t good for you either, but maybe by looking through the sort of ideological bilge served up by one of Uncle’s gargoyles you will get a clearer sense of why you should stay clear – it is unsubstantiated one-dimensional ranting from the loony toon right wing at its best.

So be careful, and feel free to turn away whenever the grotesqueness of it all gets too much. Let’s take a look at something by Judith Sloan. In this ripper of a piece she spews venom on the potential for Malcolm, who has won an election for her side of politics, to not see eye to eye with her thoughts on Australian Industrial Relations. Continue reading

Not everything is as it seems about Jess Irvine. She does reasonably regularly write quite informed and perceptive articles about a range of socio economic phenomena – notably housing. She also, however, regularly gets put in the role (often, as here, in the guise of filling in for the more overtly parallel universalism of Gitto) when she simply does not put what one assumes is a decent mind into gear, and serves up a plate full of exhortation and schlock. Continue reading

Real estate experts are cautious about the future of Australian foreign investment after the chaos of Brexit, the rise of Pauline Hanson and new tax hikes.

International property experts are cautiously watching the future of Australian foreign investment following the chaos of Brexit, the rise of Pauline Hanson and new tax hikes for overseas buyers.

Hanson and One Nation’s parliamentary allies could threaten international confidence in Aussie bricks and mortar and harm its reputation if their influence was to grow — under any Senate voting bloc with likeminded parties — real estate commentators believe.

A couple of days after an election which has produced a very tight result we now have Prime Minister Turnbull acknowledging some responsibility for not winning an election he was elevated to the Liberal leadership to deliver. Key amongst his ideas in an address on Tuesday afternoon was that there had been a ‘cynical abuse of trust’ by the ALP in claiming that the LNP coalition was looking to privatise some or all of Medicare, and that politicians and the media now had to consider the implications of this.

In part he is right. If the LNP was not planning to privatise anything with Medicare then it could be argued the ALP has ‘cynically abused trust’. But is he really suggesting that if he went back to his partyroom with an unquestionable parliamentary and senate majority there wouldn’t be any changes to Medicare which would amount to a reduction of it for many Australians? So how cynical was it? Was he not ‘cynically abusing trust’ in suggesting the ALP was trying to crash real estate prices by reforming Negative Gearing? For every Torynuff thinking ‘well the ALP was trying to crash real estate prices’ there would be an ALParatchik quite sure that the Torynuffs really do want to do Medicare in. How about the repeated use of the word ‘war’ by the Treasurer in describing the ALP’s position on jobs? Cynical? Abuse of trust? Or just errant bullshit? Neither Turnbull nor the Liberal party could honestly claim it was something arising out of only one side of politics.

The nation’s top property executives will meet this week to consider their next moves in a battle against cuts to negative gearing, including whether to raise more cash for a fighting fund aimed at quashing support for Labor’s controversial plan.

A group of 19 real estate agencies, including Ray White, ­McGrath, LJ Hooker and Raine & Horne, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the campaign called Negative Gearing Affects Everyone in a bid to fight Bill Shorten’s plan to limit gearing to new housing.

You could imagine the mood in that meeting. Here is a load of mainly men who have spent large sums of money cluttering your letterbox, filling in your radio time with their message, paying the finest shills in the lend to exhort forth from the pages of the Rupertarian and Domainfax about the evils of limiting Negative Gearing to new construction only from mid 2017 – running long on the rising rents or collapsing prices – only to find……

Weird as it may seem I haven’t actually detected panic stemming from the Federal Election yet, maybe a whiff from business types and bankers (scions of adapatable, brutal competition, reflexive capitalism generally) looking for ‘stability’ (good read on this here over at the Failed Estate – The Certainty Myth , but the general emotion I am coming across seems to be one of ‘about time’ or ‘serves them all right’

Here’s a surprising and rather comforting statistic: if you consider Australia’s modern era started in 1972, we’ve had roughly 22 years of Labor and 22 years of coalition governments.

Note to self, does Pascoemeter think history started when he lost virginity? Or the dawn of the Boomerocracy? If you go back 22 years from 1972 to 1950 we could say Australia’s had 44 years of Liberal/National and 22 of Labor. If you come forward 22 years to 1994 we could say we’ve had 8 ALP & 15 LNP – all interesting but what is he trying to say? Is Pascoemeter pinging a dart at a number which makes a point or filling another of his pieces with bullshit? Continue reading

Australia is a land of bullshit, and better opportunities to bullshit than anywhere else in the world. In Australia people are free to bullshit, happy with their bullshit, and enjoy bullshit rewards better than most of the human race. There has never been a more exciting time to bullshit for Australians, or to bullshit Australians. The bullshit party is the only way to ensure the bullshit continues. Only Bullshit will ensure that tomorrows Australians are bullshitted more than todays. Vote bullshit.

This weekend Australians will vote on the flavour of the bullshit they will experience for the next three years, exhorted by bullshit politicians, representing parties who want to bullshit voters, backed by vested interests and corporates who want to bullshit the electorate about the bullshit they already have or are already doing, or the bullshit they want. It will be brought to the attention of Australians though a bullshit media and press, which although it cannot make a profit, is paid to ensure that the bullshit reaching you is the bullshit that someone feels will benefit their bullshit, deploying the finest bullshit commentators and reporters, and running bullshit analysis to ensure that Australians have access to every last skerrick of bullshit coming their way.

Australia’s institutional framework is a national repository of bullshit, and provides a significant bulwark against anyone seeking change to the way bullshit happens in Australia – from the bullshit of State and Federal politicians and bureaucracies, through to laws and courts which defend the right to bullshit across the breadth of Australian endeavour, with an exactitude which is nothing short of bullshit. It is vital for the bullshit of Australia, that these institutions not only continue to bullshit as they have done, but seek out and engage to further bullshit for future Australians. To lay the foundations of the bullshit of tomorrow, to forecast and shape its form, to allow Australians to choose what bullshit they want, and to bullshit them about how they can achieve that bullshit. This is the promise of bullshit – to take bullshit further, to make bullshit more central, to bring more Australians together around bullshit. Continue reading

The guy has lost it (not that I reckon he ever had it all that much)…..

Brexit: Bugger Britain – it’s the world that counts

Date June 24, 2016 – 5:44PM
Pascoemeter

I really don’t give a damn about Britain.

So I thought I’d add an opinion piece revolving around it to your day, given that I am particularly knowledgeable about things I don’t give a damn about

It’s of minor importance to Australia, worth only a couple of percentage points of our exports. If the Poms want to shoot themselves in their economic foot by withdrawing from a powerful trade bloc, I don’t care.

What I do care about is filling up my opinion piece with sentiments about places I have told you from the outset I don’t care aboutContinue reading